


expectations (saturated)

by zenelly



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Canon Compliant, M/M, author is a disaster and has not finished KH3 yet so this is pre KH3, riku is predictably obtuse about it, sora is equally predictably straightforward about it because of COURSE, the one where you see in color once you've met your soulmate
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-24
Updated: 2019-08-24
Packaged: 2020-09-25 09:20:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20374405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zenelly/pseuds/zenelly
Summary: Riku has never once known a world that isn't lit up with color. Everyone keeps telling him to wait and see how much prettier it will all be when he doesn't see in grey, but he doesn't understand. Sora is right there beside him, with his pretty blue eyes and dazzling smile. Why on earth would Riku ever want anything else? What could be prettier?





	expectations (saturated)

**Author's Note:**

> we are actually coming up on a pretty important date for me fic-wise so like, accept my bullshit gay disaster pining because riku could never ever do anything else, especially pre-DDD riku before he just accepted that he's tip over teakettle for the most sunshine boy.
> 
> Title from "Dream Boy" by Waterparks (PLEASE LISTEN TO WATERPARKS I LOVE THEM)

At first, Riku doesn't know what's happening.

He feels Sora's hand around his heart, holding his Keyblade in a steadfast grip, moments before the world goes strange around the corners. Everything for a moment goes flat, like heat exhaustion, like he's staring at the sun for too long or pressed his palms to his eyes and now there are spots left behind them as he tries to blink them back into shape. Except when Riku blinks, what's happening only gets worse.

And gray is such an unfamiliar color these days.

He can't breathe. He can't think. The world around him is slowly leaching of all color, from the corners in until the last spot left is the blue of Sora's eyes, and the pink fading glimmer of his heart disappearing into the uncaring air, and all Riku can think, numb, is, "I didn't even tell him."

* * *

"You'll see in color one day," his mother tells him when he’s young, brushing his hair out. “The world is so beautiful like this. I can’t wait for you to see it all, Riku.”

Riku frowns. Is this not color? Everyone talks about how flat things are and how they can't tell the difference between items that Riku can see clearly, and how there are tests for colored vision, but Riku has never seen any differently than he does now. Has he already met his soulmate? Is this... not color? If this isn't color, then how much more amazing is the world going to look when he does find his soulmate? What will Sora's eyes look like then? They're already the color of the horizon at midday, set off by the chestnut brown of his hair and skin, but.

But Riku thinks, selfishly, in the simple way of all six-year-old children, that if his soulmate isn't Sora, who's always been by his side, then it doesn't really matter, does it? None of it matters if it isn’t Sora. As nice as it sounds to have someone who’s destined for you, isn’t it nicer to pick someone yourself?

“Okay,” he says and nothing more. He’s got what he wants, after all. When his mother finishes with his hair, Riku hops off their comfortable tan couch and heads down the grass-lined path to Sora’s house, knocking on their baby blue door until Sora appears, like sunlight streaking across the horizon. Riku smiles, offers his hand, and takes the world’s color with him.

* * *

“Hey Riku?” Sora asks, arms crossed behind his head as they walk home. The afternoon sun is bright and Riku squints through it, keeping his friend in his peripheral vision. “Did you see anything in that picture? The one the teacher showed us today?”

Riku thinks back to it, to the bright, jewel-colored painting that their teacher said was a true-color test. No one in the class had seen anything other than a flat grey canvas, but Riku had seen all the different swells of darts of color. He opens his mouth to say so because Riku can’t ever remember not seeing the bright green of the island trees’ leaves, or the burning glory of the sunset, and he has always, _always_-

But he remembers the way his mother watches him now with something unreadable in her gaze, one hand pressed to her mouth, and something grips Riku’s tongue. Embarrassment, maybe, or fear, or a nervous mix of the two. And Riku says, “Nope!”

Then, curiously, heart pounding in his ears, he asks, “Did you?”

But Sora, open and bright and without a glimmer of guile within him, only shakes his head with a disappointed pout.

Which must mean that Sora _hasn’t_ met his soulmate yet.His heart throbs, aching like something has been shoved through it, and Riku clutches it, breathes in the salt-tinged air deeper and deeper until it passes.

“Riku, are you okay?” Sora asks, and his blue, blue eyes are wide and concerned.

Riku bites down on his lip hard enough to taste metal. “I’m fine,” he lies before tagging Sora on the shoulder. “Race you to the island!”

* * *

Kairi sits with them on the tree, looking out over the ocean. They are thirteen and fourteen and every day is another day that Riku pretends to only see grayscale even when every brush of Sora’s arm against his makes his heartbeat stutter and has him making grand plans into their shared future. They have a house and a questionable number of pets, even though Riku has only recently learned how to cook for himself and just last week, Sora accidentally dyed all of his white clothes a strange grey-pink color. It's fine. They'll learn.

"I can't wait until you guys see what it really looks like," she says with a longing sigh. "Watching the light fade must be pretty neat, but the colors are so beautiful."

Kairi can see them already, because Kairi isn't from around here, Riku knows. Her world doesn't have soulmates the same way theirs does. Kairi has a mark, a plain black line on her wrist, that she says will turn into a beautiful picture the moment she touches her soulmate. But the colors of the sunset are beautiful, Riku doesn't say. He likes the way they make Kairi's hair light up, how they turn Sora's hair bronzey and bold, his skin warm and brown. But he doesn't say. He just smiles, a peculiar, strangling fear crawling up his throat. "I can't wait either."

Out of the corner of his eyes, Sora gives him a strange look. “I like sunsets right now!”

“They’ll be even better when you see them for real. What’ll you do when you meet your soulmate, Sora?” Kairi asks, tucking her hair behind her ear. Riku has watched, but there’s been no spread of color on her wrist anytime she’s touched Sora, and it’s supposed to be just a one time thing and-

He drags his gaze away. If only it was the possible to do the same for his thoughts. He’s thinking about it too much. It’ll pass.

“Probably the same thing I always have,” Sora answers after a moment’s thought. “I mean, Riku and I have always come to play here. Why do anything else?”

Riku stares out at the bright line of the horizon until his eyes hurt, sick in the pit of his stomach that this imaginary _eventual _presence in Sora’s life is going to take this from him too when this is and has always been theirs until Sora started inviting _other people_ to _their_ place. Words flood his mouth like the hot swell of salt-bitter water and just as terrible to swallow.

“What about you, Riku? What would you do?”

“Get out of here,” he says. It’s unfair and he knows it is, because Riku isn’t answering the same question as Sora. Riku wants to keep Sora safe. Wants to look out for him with the strength of his heart, the way he told that tall man he would. But Riku can’t bear the thought of Sora being someone _else’s_ the way he’s supposed to be Riku’s.

And in his chest, something dark curls up and takes root.

“Aw Riku, come on!” Sora swings his face into view, and there’s something almost a little scared in his eyes. “You wouldn’t just leave, would you? Without us?”

He can't just tell Sora about it. Riku honestly doesn't know what would be worse: Sora still not seeing in color or Sora smiling and lying and pretending that he does too so he doesn’t hurt Riku’s feelings. For that matter, he doesn't even know that Sora is _his _soulmate. It would make sense, and the timing would line up, but-

“You could come with me, you know. I mean, we have to get out of here and see what’s all out there, don’t we?” Riku looks out at the horizon, swallowing past the tightness in his throat. “We haven’t found our soulmates here, after all.”

(But a little corner of his heart whispers, _you know you aren't good enough for someone like him_.)

* * *

He did this.

This is all his fault.

He had the sky and the crystalline colors of the world in his hand, and he _did this_. He ruined everything. No wonder people are always clamoring about color if this is what the world looks like without it. Even worse is the fact that this world doesn’t adhere to the same rules as Riku’s so there isn’t even the guarantee that monochromatic sight is taken into account for its construction.

Not that Riku is looking anyway.

Riku can’t see.

Everything is dull and without depth like this, and Riku can’t see. He keeps his eyes shut tight, and his hand trembles where he’s using it to feel his way down the hall, an unsteady track. If he opens his eyes, he has to face the evidence of what he’s done because Sora is _gone_ and with him is every bit of color the world has ever known.

He did this.

Riku is lost for a long time, the heels of his hands digging hard into the wet skin around his eyes. He’s covered in sweat and tears and he’s just made the biggest mistake of his life. He was supposed to _protect _Sora. Not kill him. Not drain the color from his world.

What does it matter, he thinks with a high wash of anger. What does it matter when Sora isn’t _his_? He’s not Sora’s soulmate and he-

He _deserves_ this now.

* * *

In the large foyer of the castle, Kairi wraps her arms around a little Shadow and the Light in her heart shines bright enough to bring Sora back home.

(Somewhere else, Riku doubles over, his hand over his mouth, grateful and sobbing as color returns to the walls, the floor, his skin. Never again, he swears to himself. Never, ever again.)

* * *

After-

_After_, Riku clings to every bit of color he can find. The Castle of Oblivion is particularly unbearable in this regard, done up in all white and greys, and it’s jarring, makes him think he’s back there again ruining the best thing life has ever tried to give him. Riku keeps a hand near the brightly bordered cards at all times. Even just a glimpse of blue helps bring his heart back from the panic-sick edge it likes to hang on.

When Sora forgets, though, the world goes strange at the corners. Heat-shimmering and peculiar, and it isn’t until Riku realizes what Namine is doing that he figures it out. She’s altering his heart. Of course that would alter what and who he is to Riku. But it doesn’t leave entirely, never fades completely to greyscale again, and if Riku has his way about it, it never will.

After, Riku keeps himself as close as he dares. He knows he isn’t worth the color in his vision, isn’t worth the way he can see the sunset in Twilight Town or the piercing, achingly familiar blue of Roxas’s eyes.

He doesn’t deserve these reminders of Sora’s presence, stronger and firmer every day.

He doesn’t deserve anything at all. But Riku has only known a world without color once, and selfishly, he never wants to see it again.

If he can keep Sora safe-

If he can just do that, then the rest of it doesn’t matter. The fact that Sora has never said anything about seeing in color, has never and will never look at Riku the way Riku looks at him, it doesn’t matter. He’ll be happy just like this. Beside him. Guarding him.

Riku can never let himself hope for anything more.

* * *

He should have taken into account Sora’s dislike of Riku’s plans. Especially his unspoken ones.

With a few casual words, Sora shatters Riku’s entire worldview, and he doesn’t even have the decency to time it dramatically or anything like that. They’re just comparing their Mark of Mastery exams before Riku and Mickey hare off to the realms of darkness, in the scant few hours Riku has carved for himself so he can stare at the lines of Sora’s face and memorize where his freckles are. (Across his nose, one, charmingly, beneath the swell of his lower lip, bold and daring where Riku wishes his mouth could be.)

Right, wait, Sora shattering Riku’s world. Not Sora’s freckles. Focus, Riku.

They’re just talking. Sora has his fingers laced with Riku’s because he’s poking at all of Riku’s calluses and is talking about his favorite parts and Riku is actively focusing on keeping his heart beating steadily.

“Y’know what I liked most? I liked the Dreameaters,” Sora says with a wide grin, like he’s completely unaware of the bomb he’s about to drop on Riku. Warm blue eyes flick up to Riku’s. “They’re so bright and colorful. Like candy. Or, you remember the ice cream shop back on Destiny Islands? They look like the decorations Old Man Yamane had out front, all painted and vibrant.”

Riku’s mouth is suddenly very dry.

“Colorful?” he says, and he’s proud of how steady it comes out.

Sora cuts him a sharp grin. “Yes, Riku, colorful. Full of color. That thing we can see when we get older and have found our soulmates. Or maybe not older, but definitely the soulmate part.”

“Don’t be an ass,” Riku replies, reflexively. “How…” Riku swallows, mouth unaccountably dry. “How long have you…?”

“Riku,” Sora says gently. He reaches out to grab Riku’s arm, and it’s a force of will that keeps Riku still. That and the fact that – “I’ve always seen you in color.”

“Me too,” Riku blurts out because he’s an _idiot_. It’s worth it to see the way red floods Sora’s cheeks. “I’ve always-. Your eyes are very blue.”

“Oh for crying out loud, Riku!" Sora says, chastising. "You can't just not tell me these things! You could have just _said_ something, you dingus."

“You never said anything either,” Riku protests, but it’s weak and he knows it.

“I thought you knew.” Riku holds perfectly still as Sora nuzzles him, the sweep of his nose and lashes terrible as they drive him completely insane. “Of course it was you! It was always going to be you, Riku.”

And, sure, that makes. Sense. Sort of. Riku supposes. In a cosmic sort of sense.

He breathes out.

“I’m an _idiot_,” he says. “We could have been kissing this whole time.”

“See, that’s what I’m talking about,” Sora murmurs, and his nose is right beside Riku’s and his mouth is warm, warm, warm, and the world is so colorful when they finally, finally kiss.


End file.
